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Focal Words and the Recovery of Sentence Meaning
- Source: ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics, Volume 47, Issue 1, Jan 1980, p. 15 - 27
Abstract
In listening and reading, the foreign language learner must be able to process a tremendous amount of information in a short time. In order to do this, he must develop a strategy for choosing those items that help in recovering that information. One way of doing this is to concentrate on focal words: words containing key elements of meaning in the sentence. These words may then be used - in speech and writing - to reconstruct the original message. This paper explores the relationship of focel words to other sentence elements and describes various focal word exercises for listening and reading.
© 1980 John Benjamins Publishing Company